Microsoft Pri0
Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times technology reporter Benjamin J. Romano, who has been covering the company for more than two years.
May 3, 2008 6:56 PM
Microsoft-Yahoo: It's over. What do you think?
Posted by Benjamin J. Romano
The announcement this afternoon that Microsoft is dropping its proposal to buy Yahoo looks to be accompanied by no ifs, ands or buts. In a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicated no plans to launch a hostile takeover, and a company adviser said bluntly, "The offer is off the table."
See this post on Brier Dudley's blog for the full text of the letter. Here's my story on the news.
So what do you think? Was this a good move or a bad move? How is Microsoft going to catch Google without Yahoo? How annoyed are you that after three months of anxious waiting we've got bupkis?
Posted by AkaPella
7:41 AM, May 04, 2008
First off, calling Microsoft the evil empire by the poster Kma is a pathetic & uneducated observation. Microsoft would be smart to spend their money elsewhere. I hope they use those billions to purchase exciting emerging technologies that they can bring to the masses (something they do very well).
Posted by Peter
3:42 PM, May 04, 2008
The Microsoft-Yahoo deal was a bad match from the beginning. Microsoft is a follower in every market they are in, and Yahoo an Internet leader.
I have been a paying Yahoo customer for nine years; had Microsoft purchased Yahoo, my trust in Yahoo would have plummeted, and I would probably have moved my services elsewhere, including giving up the e-mail address I've had the longest (9 yrs) since 1985 when I had my first Internet e-mail address (unrvax!bally!pete).
Jul 1, 08 - 11:45 AM
Microsoft buying natural-language search company Powerset
Jun 30, 08 - 05:16 PM
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Jun 27, 08 - 03:52 PM
Gates send-off: Gates has had Ballmer's back from the beginning
Jun 27, 08 - 01:09 PM
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Jun 27, 08 - 11:48 AM
Gates send-off: Two guys and 90,000 employees

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Bill Gates, who last week ended his full-time involvement with Microsoft, was often right. He made a career, a company and an industry by looking over the horizon.


Posted by Kma
7:05 AM, May 04, 2008
Thank goodness... I was just getting started researching all the different places I could move my on-line email and my club bulletin boards and chat rooms. It seems as though the Evil Empire has learned (maybe learned) that just because it wants something, doesn't mean it should have it.